Gov’t to start negotiations for right of way settlement on Mindanao Railway project

DAVAO CITY – The government will start the negotiations with property owners this year for the settlement of road right of way in the implementation of the phase 1 of the Mindanao Railway Project, an official from the Mindanao Development Authortiy (MinDA) said.

MinDA executive deputy director Romeo Montenegro said in an interview on Wednesday that the government allotted P9 billion to acquire the properties that would be in the path of the train that will run 102 kilometers from Tagum, to Davao City, and to Digos City.

The government targets to complete the acquisition within the year, he said.

“What we would expect is for the process to go on smoothly, for right of way process to be accomplished in a manner where we secure it smoothly with the property owners because the usual challenge in the right of way is dispute in agreements as to pricing and then eventually government imploring its imminent domain authority. We don’t want that to happen,” Montenegro added.

He said they hope to settle it with property owners as they do not want to encounter legal issues later on that would delay the implementation of the railway.

“We don’t want to see these types of projects encountering legal hurdles later on or cases filed. It will have an impact on timelines of the project as all with other big ticket infrastructures projects encountering delays because of legal issue,” he added.

He said they would need the help of local government units with the right of way settlements.

The budget for the right of way settlement was part of the P36 billion approved budget under the 2018 General Appropriations Act, which was intended for a one-track, diesel-run locomotive.

But Department of Transportation (DOTr) later reverted to its original plan of a two-track electricity-run railway worth P86 billion.

But he said this is still subject for approval by the National Economic Development Authority-investment coordination committee, which consists of sectary of finance as chairman; the NEDA director-general as cochairman; and executive secretary, secretaries of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Budget and Management and the governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines as members.

The negotiation will begin once the detailed engineering is finalized, he said.

Montenegro added the DOTr has been conducting ocular inspection on the ground, utilizing drones to assess what kind of ground works like whether it’s necessary to drill a tunnel through mountain or construct a viaduct before the actual laying of rail tracks.

Actual construction may happen later part of 2020, he said.

According to Department of Transportation (DOTr), the railway’s first segment will reduce travel time from Tagum City, Davao del Norte to Digos City, Davao del Sur from 3.5 hours to 1.3 hours once it starts operating in 2022.

It added the rail line will be built with a single track, with provisions for future tracks and electrification. It will have six five-car passenger trains with three spare cars, four locomotives and 15 freight cars.

Upon project completion, the DOTr expects the daily ridership of the Tagum-Davao-Digos segment to increase to 134,060 by 2022.

The Department projects the daily ridership to further increase to 237,023 by 2032 and 375,134 by 2042, it said.